


The Kids Still Move to a Steady Beat

by boombashkas



Category: Percy Jackson and the Olympians & Related Fandoms - All Media Types, Percy Jackson and the Olympians - Rick Riordan, The Heroes of Olympus - Rick Riordan
Genre: Annabeth's only there for like two seconds, Gen, Well maybe romantic if you squint, but it isn't intentional, completely platonic though, jercy - Freeform, pointless friendship fic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-06-22
Updated: 2014-06-22
Packaged: 2018-02-05 19:00:59
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,196
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1828834
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/boombashkas/pseuds/boombashkas
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Jason doesn't know how to skateboard. Percy is horrified and decides to change that.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Kids Still Move to a Steady Beat

“You’ve never been to a skate park?”

“Nope.”

“Never?”

“No.”

“ _Ever_?”

Jason tries to keep himself from rolling his eyes (and then rolls them anyway) as Percy looks at him with the most incredulous expression that Jason has ever seen on his face. Seriously. Percy had looked less shocked when they had been attacked by that Shrimpzilla monster all those months ago. 

So apparently, a gigantic sea monster attacking them was less surprising than finding out Jason didn’t know how to skateboard (skate? Board? What was the actual term anyway?)

Well, that sounded about normal for them.

“I just never needed to learn how to use a skateboard,” Jason replies, shrugging. “I mean, I can fly and stuff, it’s not like I’m ever going to have to skateboard away from a monster or something.”

If it was possible, Percy looks even more incredulous. “Dude. It’s not something you learn so you can fight monsters better. It’s something you do just because it’s fun.” He shakes his head, all disappointed-like. “Seriously, your Roman side just _gets_ me sometimes.”

They’re both sitting on the seats lining the swordplay arena in Camp Half-Blood. They’ve just ended a session of teaching a few new campers how to handle a sword, which had (naturally) ended up with the two of them sparring for fun, which had turned to sparring competitively and – well, long story short, the strawberry fields are now flooded and there’s a gigantic scorch mark from a lightning strike right in the middle of the arena.

Jason and Percy are not claiming responsibility. (Well, Percy isn’t, and Jason just sort of goes along with him.)

“So are you telling me you’re _good_ at skateboarding?” Jason asks.

“Yes,” Percy says, looking miffed, “You don’t have to sound so surprised, you know.”

“Well, duh, yes I do. It’s a non-water-related activity you’re good at…”

“Sword-fighting is non-water-related and I’m good at that…”

“Yeah, right after you dump about a gallon of water onto yourself.”

“Can you shut up, please?”

“Well, since you said ‘please’.”

“You were not this sarcastic when we first met, you know.”

“I got it from you. I guess you grew on me. Like some unwanted fungus.”

Percy laughs at that one and shoved at Jason’s face. “Yeah, yeah, whatever,” he says, “You know what this means, right?”

“The fact that I’m secretly gay for you or the fact that I can’t skateboard?”

“The second one,” Percy says easily, twirling Riptide in pen form between his fingers. “This means that I have to take you to a skate park and teach you how to…”

Jason shoots up to his feet like a bolt of lightning (pun intended) and Percy blinks at him like a fish out of water (pun also intended). 

“Oh, no,” Jason’s eyes are wide as he shakes his head at him. “Remember the last time you tried to ‘teach’ me something new?”

Percy stares at him. “Are you talking about our highly successful cookie baking class?”

“Highly successful? We managed to blow up your mom’s oven.”

“Yeah, but we made the cookies, didn’t we? So it was successful.”

Jason glares at him. “I didn’t exactly appreciate it when your first instinct when the oven blew up was to protect the cookies and not me.”

“Hey, you’re immune to _lightning_ , for Hades’ sake. The cookies aren’t.”

Jason rolls his eyes again. He does that a lot when he’s with Percy, and seeing as how he’s with Percy a lot, every day just ends up with him going to bed with a headache because of all the excessive eye-rolling he does during the day. “We’re not having a skateboarding class. Nope. Not in a million years.”

Instead of looking defeated like Jason hopes he will, Percy just smirks. “You’re just scared you’re going to suck at it like you suck at baking.”

Jason narrows his eyes. “Am not.”

“Are too.”

“Am not.”

“Are too.”

“Am not.”

“Are too times infinity!” Percy declares gleefully.

“What?” Jason splutters. “That isn’t even – you aren’t – am not times two infinity!”

“Are too times three infinity!”

“Am not times…!”

“I will never understand for the life of me how two big babies like you are the most powerful demigods in existence,” a deadpan voice comes from behind them. They turn in time to see Annabeth shake her head at the two of them and walk away.

“Well, then,” Percy says as they watch her leave (Jason is _so completely sure_ Percy’s just being a pervert and watching her legs).

Percy shakes himself out of it and turns to him. “Look, man, let’s just give it a try, okay? If you don’t like it, we won’t do it again.”

“I won’t like it,” Jason says firmly. “And even if we don’t do it again, you’re just going to make fun of me about it forever.”

“Oh, please, would I do that?”

“Yes.”

Percy smiles. “Okay, maybe a little bit. Look, if you think you’re going to fall or whatever, you can always put your flying powers into motion, can’t you? And it’s not like you’re actually going to fall – it’s pretty easy once you get the hang of it.”

Jason huffs. He knows Percy won’t let go of it. The guy had pestered Jason for about a month about how he needed to learn how to make cookies. (It was not a very nice ego booster to be showing off his flying and lightning abilities in front of a new camper and then have Percy let’s-make-blue-food-together Jackson barge in and lecture him about how his cookie-making skills were not top notch.)

He rubs a hand down his face and closes his eyes. “Uggh, fine,” he gives in, and he can practically feel Percy’s grin.

“Awesome!” Percy cheers. “This is going to be so much fun!” He punches Jason’s arm playfully.

Jason opens his eyes to glare at him but Percy’s grinning at him like he’s his favorite person in the whole world and, yeah, maybe this might end up being a little fun after all.

~*~

“Okay,” Jason says, taking deep breaths in and out, “I think I’ve got it.”

“See? It’s not so hard, is it?”

“Let me do a test run and then I’ll tell you.”

It was a few weeks later and Percy had been dragging him to this “totally awesome skate park” he knew near his parents’ apartment for the past two weeks. He had brought along a skateboard that he _said_ he had dug from the back of closet and had repaired for Jason to use, but Jason wasn’t an idiot – he had seen the brand new price tag hanging off one of its wheels before Percy had quickly ripped it off and pocketed it.

He knows Percy isn’t exactly rolling in money, so it’s nice to know he’d spend his allowance on him. It makes him want to be good at this whole skateboarding thing.

The skateboard in question is, of course, Superman themed. As soon as Jason sees it, he’s already decided he’s going to buy an Aquaman one for Percy later.

Superman is currently underneath his feet, smiling all heroic-like at Jason. Percy’s crouched by his feet, the both of them perched on one end of what Percy calls ‘a vert ramp’. It’s basically a wide gigantic U standing upright. For some unfathomable reason, Percy thinks Jason can just skate right down to the bottom, back up the other end, and then back again.

“Don’t worry,” Percy says gently, “You mastered everything else. This is just one step further.”

Yeah, well, everything else was a piece of cake. Percy had been teaching him for the past two weeks and he’s convinced Percy chose the easiest obstacles for him to skate on. Maybe he was just being nice but he wishes he hadn’t been – now he’s on top of this monstrosity, and he’s going to embarrass himself _a lot_. There’s a group of guys their age milling around the massive bowl-type structure in the middle of the park, so he can’t even fly if he fails. Jason’s pretty sure they’re laughing at his terrified face too, which doesn’t help.

Percy catches him looking over at them. “Ignore them,” he said, “Guys here are always really competitive. They’re just trying to psych you out.”

“Yeah, well,” Jason laughed nervously, “It’s working.”

“Don’t think too much about it. Remember what I said. Keep the distance between your feet, you won’t fall. Once you start to go up, stay loose and you’ll come right back down. You don’t need to worry about speeding yourself up or anything – I think you’ll have enough momentum for that anyway and I don’t want you going too fast.” Percy smiles at him. “Don’t worry; you should be a natural at this. Son of Zeus and all.”

Jason nods and looks down. Holy Hera, how high up are they? He’s never had a fear of heights or anything (son of Zeus, like Percy said) but this is kind of sort of really scary. Flying or even running down something like this would be easy for him, because he’s used to his powers and he’s good at running – it’s something he already knows how to do automatically, like breathing. This skateboard on the other hand… How is he supposed to control himself on top of a board with wheels on it rushing down this ramp?

He is so going to embarrass himself.

Percy’s staring at him. Why is Percy staring at him?

“Why are you staring at me?” he asks. 

“Just,” Percy shrugs, “You look scared.”

“Well, that’s because I _am_.”

“It’s just weird,” Percy puts his hands into his pockets. “I mean, we faced down giants, and Titans, and _freaking Gaea_ for Neptune’s sake, and a vert ramp is what gets you?” He shakes his head. “You’re plain weird, man.”

Jason blinks at him and then looks down at the ramp again. It looks about fourteen feet high, with maybe two feet of an almost vertical section at the top. The flat area at the bottom is much longer than the sides, so at least that’ll be easy. And Percy says he won’t reach the top of the other end – apparently no one gets it on their first try and if he does, he’ll almost definitely fall. A ton of people fall down on their first try too, which is why Percy had him decked out in tons of protective equipment like some sort of armor.

Down and then back up again. How hard can it be?

He peers down the edge again, feels a little like he did when he was trying to control those storm spirit horses given to him by Auster, the Roman god of the south wind. He feels a little like he did when he faced Porphyrion at the Wolf House, completely unarmed. And he feels a little like he did when he and Percy took down the twin giants Otis and Ephialtes together.

But only a little, because those were some of the hardest things he had ever done.

And this is just a stupid ramp he has to skate down.

He gives Percy a sideways look. The guy is smarter than he looks. “You did some freaky psychology thing with me, didn’t you?”

Percy smiles. “Maybe a little. Just so you won’t be so scared.”

“I would be fine anyway, you know,” Jason readies himself on the skateboard. 

“I know,” Percy grins, “You just needed a little push to get rid of the fear.” He pauses suddenly, looking thoughtful. “Speaking of little pushes…”

And before Jason knows it, Percy’s shoved him down the top of the ramp and _oh sweet Jupiter I’m moving I’m skating I’m going to crash I’m going to DIE no please I’m not even seventeen yet what is this Percy I’m going to kill you, you little piece of –_

Except he isn’t crashing. The skateboard holds steady under his feet. He holds out his arms perfectly to balance. The wind in his face feels great. He glides down one end of the ramp, then up the other end.

Percy’s cheering way more than he needs to, seeing as how Jason didn’t even have enough momentum to make it to properly up the other end. He turns around, pushing at the ground to make himself go faster and just makes it up the end Percy’s standing on. 

Percy grabs his arm and hauls him up. He’s grinning widely. “That was completely _awesome_!” he practically shouts.

Jason’s completely pumped with adrenaline. He’s grinning too – so much it should be embarrassing but isn’t because _oh gods that was amazing._

“Yeah, it was,” he agrees. “In fact…”

He turns towards the ramp again. “How about we go again?”

Percy grins even wider as he grabs his own skateboard and readies it. “You’re on,” he laughs.

The guys near the bowl structure have already lost interest in them. Jason tilts his skateboard toward the slope of the ramp. He and Percy push off at the same time.

Superman looks absurdly proud of him, which is sort of creepy.

But so does Percy, which is – like Percy said – completely _awesome_.

**Author's Note:**

> The title is from the song Surrender by Angels and Airwaves. The song is almost as beautiful as Jercy is.  
> And oh my god I had to edit this so much before posting it.  
> Anyway, kudos, comments and stuff are appreciated.


End file.
